Synthetic Smiles
by renzie17
Summary: Her smiles were artificial—synthetic compared to what she felt deep within. And nobody, she hoped, would see the difference. /AU NaruHina/


_**Note**__: This is basically something I made up out of the experiences people around me have. Of course, not excluding me, but I'm not gonna tell which parts were from me and which weren't. Heehees. Enjoy!_

_**Warning: **__Cutting is involved... If you know what I mean..._

_**DISCLAIMER**__: I do NOT own Naruto._

_**Synthetic Smiles**_

No one, Hinata believed, truly and genuinely cared for the life of the Hyuuga heiress. They knew she was filthy rich and her father was the CEO of the world-renowned Hyuuga Corporation which specialized in ocular devices. They knew she was a seventeen-year-old girl who goes to a normal high school with normal grades and normal friends.

They didn't know the situations she had every day when she gets home from school. They didn't know her curfew was only until eight o'clock in the evening. They didn't know of her father's demands and expectations from her.

They didn't know and they could care less.

.

.

Hinata loved school. It was her escape; a sanctuary of sorts. She loved her friends and sometimes even her studies.

But mostly her friends. They were her destination and school a mere getaway car.

They were her real family.

.

.

"How about doing the project at your house, Hinata?"

Hinata snapped her head at her pink-haired friend. "W-we can't..."

"Why not?" The brunette with double buns asked.

"Father wouldn't a-allow it."

"You really can't have friends at home?" The blond girl said from beside her.

"No, s-sorry."_I don't have a home._

.

.

Hinata's mother died of heart disease when she was eleven years old. Since then things at home were never the same; her father as distant as ever, her little sister turning out to be a rebellious spirit, running away from duty and yet still managing to be dubbed better than Hinata.

The effect of her mother's death on her was felt long after her that event; only beginning to regularly miss Hanako Hyuuga when she turned fifteen.

Her heart longed for her mother, leaving Hinata to ponder on what-ifs and what-could-have-beens every night when she felt alone and rejected. She yearned to feel her mother's embrace again.

_This place isn't home anymore, Momma,_ she'd think, _Wish you were here..._

.

.

It was raining hard that day after the funeral. Hinata carried one of those gigantic umbrellas people usually kept in their cars or what valets used to shield rain from people's heads. She was walking home from a nearby convenience store when a very blond boy ran to her side under the cover of her umbrella.

"Hi!" The boy said to her, "You're one of my homeroom classmates this year, right?"

"Y-yes." He had been for years.

"Cool! I'm Naruto, by the way. Naruto Uzumaki!" But she already knew that. "What's your name?"

"H-hinata Hyuuga."

"That's a cool name. Not as cool as Naruto, but it's pretty cool." He laughed loudly.

It was like sunshine.

.

.

"Oh, you mean Naruto?" said Sakura Haruno, Hinata's pink-haired friend one day during freshman year. Back when everyone was still fifteen and naïve. "He's been alone all his life..."

She guessed Sakura would know, being close friends with him and all. Well, everyone knew the blond blockhead liked the green eyed pixie-girl, but everyone was sure it was only an infatuation of sorts.

Besides, everyone also knew Sakura was into Sasuke. And everyone knew that Sasuke couldn't get it past that thick head of his that he liked her, too. And everyone knew Naruto's been living by himself since he was a kid, only being taken care of occasionally by a white haired guardian known to be a pervert, but best known for his erotic literature and not for his ninja saga from which Naruto's namesake came from (the last piece of information Hinata acquired herself as she enjoyed reading that series). Everyone knew Naruto was orphaned since birth.

That everyone included Hinata.

She was only making sure that what people were saying was true. And now that she knew they were, her respect and admiration for Naruto Uzumaki only increased.

How could a young man like him live alone for all his life while she couldn't take three years?

.

.

Since she was eleven she admired Naruto. She admired how he stood his ground against those who bullied him and admired how he stood up for his friends in times of trouble. Once when they were thirteen he hit her cousin Neji for her when he was yelling at her for something she can no longer remember.

In fact, all she could remember Naruto cutting off her cousin at mid shout and hitting the guy in the gut.

Since then she vowed to be strong in spirit through everything she's going through.

.

.

Whoever said promises are meant to be broken wasn't lying… at least not entirely so.

Hinata was fed up. She hated her life. She hated her family. She hated staying in their house for the weekend because of rules and being with the people she hated being with.

One day she wanted to escape.

So she purchased a blade.

.

.

It was four o'clock in the afternoon when her silent cries filled the empty Chemistry lab one day after school. Hinata didn't want to go home after the message her father sent her.

_Explain these papers on your desk._

She left her report card on her desk as she was rushing to leave her house, thinking no one but the maids would enter her room in her short absence. Her grades were dropping because of stress and she didn't want her father to know that especially since it was the middle of senior year. Her A's dropped to B's and only A-'s were acceptable to her father.

The universe proved to hate her even more when her father _did_ find her card, so she found herself on the floor beside the sink of one of the Chemistry tables, stiffling her cries.

It was four-thirty in the afternoon was when the door opened.

"Hinata?"

She gasped, her heart jumping at the sudden break of silence. She looked up at him, eyes swollen, mouth ajar to help her breathe. She was a mess and she was ashamed to show it.

"Dude, you okay?" He looked back to check if anyone was around. When the coast was clear, he shut the door behind him and sat down on the floor beside her.

Naruto refused to look at her, respecting her space. He knew how girls tend care about what they looked like in front of other people; take a look at Sakura and Ino. So he shut up and waited for her, if she ever wanted to, to talk to him.

Instead, Hinata cried harder.

It was five o'clock in the afternoon when her Naruto walked her home from school.

It was 5:45 when her father lectured her.

5:46 when she found she could take it for once, so she didn't have to open that new blade she kept on the cupboard in her bathroom.

.

.

Situation upon situation was blamed on her. Like that one time someone forgot to turn off the tap in the bathroom or when the heater wasn't heated high enough.

But what really pulled on her strings was when someone found a freaking condom in the bathroom and blamed her for it.

Her?Sweet, innocent Hinata smuggling men and sexual devices in the house when she wasn't even allowed outside of its walls? Were they serious?!

Of course, Hinata knew who it belonged to. Her little fifteen-year-old sister was exploring her boundaries. And even if she told him so he wouldn't believe her. He would use Hanabi's age as an excuse and accuse Hinata for putting blame on her sister.

During those nights she would refuse to eat and lock herself in her room and just cut and cry until she fell asleep.

But even sleep was barely an escape anymore.

.

.

"I said I don't want to eat!" Hinata screamed at her father—her father! She learned to stand up, shutting the door at his face, locking it and slumping face down on her red cotton sheets. They were soft against her moisturized skin. It was a shame they were stained with her tears—and sometimes her blood.

Hinata had the luxuries of the world, but she felt she had nothing of worth. She took off her bangles-for-the-day—bangles she'd carefully choose from her newly established collection (bangles that hid scar after scar after scar from every attempted escape).

She took out the blade she was accustomed to put in her pocket and cut the already coarse skin of her left wrist. She watched the scarlet liquid she was already used to seeing, smelling and feeling flow from outside her self-inflicted wound and for a second—just a second—she calmed down.

She let her blood flow as she thought if the events that led her to once again mutilate her body.

_Her father scolded her for not passing the honors program in Konoha University. She reasoned stress and told him it was a good thing she even got into the Business Ad program in the first place as the University was an Academic Center for the course. He coldly stated it wasn't good enough and compared her to her cousin Neji who had passed the honors program and even got accepted into a scholarship for it._

_She apologized for not being good enough, but her father insisted on giving her his points:_

1. You don't care for your future.

2. You're wasting your potential.

3. You DON'T EVEN TRY.

_"SHUT UP! JUST SHUT UP!" She broke loose, "YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M GOING THROUGH. YOU DON'T KNOW HOW HARD I TRY. YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!"_

_She ran as fast as she could to her room, not wanting her father to catch up to her if he ever tried to run after her (which was unlikely)._

_She shut the door behind her and sat against it. Knocks were loudly made from the other side. "Hinata. We're not finished. And dinner will be served in a minute."_

_"I don't want to eat."_

_"Hinata!"_

_"I SAID I DON'T WANT TO EAT!"_

Her memories were fresh. As fresh as the smiles she gave every single person who noticed her, greeted her. But her smiles were artificial—synthetic compared to what she felt deep within.

And nobody, she hoped, would see the difference.

.

.

A soft ringing woke her up at around three in the morning. Hinata fell asleep after cutting herself. If she calculated correctly, it had been seven hours since she fell asleep.

She groggily picked up her phone and box of tissues from her bedside table.

"Hello?" _Who could be calling her at this time of the night?_

"Hinata!" A painfully cheerful booming voice greeted her. "What's up?"

"I-it's three in the m-morning..." she stuttered, still finding it hard to speak properly with Naruto after breaking down in front of him a few times after that Chemistry lab incident. She nervously cleaned her new wound as she listened to him babble.

"Oh, right! I'm sorry about that? I got way too early for unknown reasons and couldn't fall back asleep. Were you asleep? Did I wake you?"

"I w-was, and y-you did; but that's okay! U-um... Why would you c-call _me_, though?"

"Well, Sasuke wouldn't let me copy off his homework if I woke him up and Sakura would _murder_ me if I interrupted her 'beauty sleep'." She heard him emphasize, "And I just felt like calling you, you know? You're cool to talk to."

This made her smile. A smile she reserved for genuine moments like watching fireflies or holding a new-born baby. Or moments when the person you _know_ you like calls you cool. Smiles she reserved for real things and not the things even her father's money could buy.

"Hinata?" She hadn't noticed herself spacing out until Naruto called her name, "You ... okay?"

"Y-yes! I'm alright!"

Naruto paused for a few seconds before asking, "Have you gotten enough sleep?"

"I th-think so... W-why?"

And she could hear the mischief in his voice when he replied, "Wanna just wait for school hours instead of sleeping more?"

.

.

When Naruto picked her up with his old Benz, he didn't find anything off about Hinata except her face. She wore a loose olive green cardigan over a white tank, Aztec leggings and dark brown ankle boots. Neutral colored bangles donned her left arm and she carried that black fringed bag she usually used for school. Hinata liked to dress up. Maybe not as outrageously as Sakura, Tenten and, God forbid, Ino, but she dressed really nicely.

Less was more.

But her smile wasn't the bright smile he imagined would suit her perfectly. It didn't reach her lavender eyes.

"_You're_ ready for school," he commented, certainly feeling underdressed with just an orange sweater over his black shirt, jeans and red Converse.

She shrugged and grinned, "I-is it wrong to dress f-fashionably in the morning?" Her face flushed bright red when he laughed and opened the door to his car for her.

"Well, this is my favorite sweater and I consider it fashionable, so I guess it isn't," he laughed, "Anyway, have you had any breakfast yet? Cuz we're getting some ramen!" Hinata smiled and got into his car. "Your pretty clothes don't reach your smile, so I swear to make it reach your face tonight!"

They drove off to the same convenience store Hinata was walking home from that day they met. They put hot water into their cups of ramen at the same time so that they could open them up and eat them at the same time and so that, according to the ramen expert himself they'd be eating the same quality of instant ramen as the other and it'd be fair.

.

.

"Are we gonna talk about it yet? What's bothering you?" Naruto asked ever so impulsively as he took a slurp out of his own cup of ramen.

Hinata turned to look at him, brows raising only slightly, asking him what.

Naruto stayed quiet and smiled as he kept his eyes on her "You're very pretty, Hinata; but you look like you cry every single night..."

She looked wide-eyed at him, shrugged and smiled. "Being a Hyuuga isn't all it looks to be. Being part of high society isn't all about glamor and luxury. It's about following a standard and reaching expectations.

"And it sucks." Naruto laughed at this, which made Hinata smile, "Sometimes—most of the time it sucks so much I just want to end it all... and move on to the next life."

At this point Naruto made a grab for her bangle-filled arm and took of one bangle after another to reveal her scarred wrist. All Hinata could do was stare in shock at his actions and face the music.

When all the bangles were dropped either on her lap or his or by the clutch that served as the gap between them, when the truth—her most guarded secret was out, Naruto just stared at her marred wrists.

The same wrists she cut every night in hopes of seeking an outlet for her pain. The same wrists she mutilated to help her escape reality. The same wrists that would hurt so freaking good.

And all of a sudden, Naruto pulled it closer to his face as well as lean in closer and kissed every scar that trailed down a third of the soft skin of her arm. His lips were soft, warm and gentle against a surface so rough, cold and beaten.

Almost as if he was willing to be there for her.

Only when a tear dropped from her face did Hinata notice her ugly sobbing and the tears streaming down her cheeks and her jaw. Her chest was tight and her nose hurt from all the emotion it was trying (and failing) to supress.

Naruto's free arm hooked around her neck and pulled her into his chest where she cried all her troubles away, not caring about the way her sobs could have been heard a mile away or how Naruto's alleged favorite sweater was getting soaked from her river of tears.

.

.

They were on the roof of Naruto's truck when the sun rose, eating ice cream in spite of the cold morning breeze.

What they were, of that neither was sure of yet. But he was there for her and that was all she needed at the moment. That was all she ever needed from the beginning.

_**Note**__: yaaaay! Had this on my mind one depressing evening and decided to write it down before everything vanished from my mind. Haha! But it took me three days before I actually got down to finishing it. Basically, I just wrote down what came into my mind without a coherent thought (but then it turned out slightly coherent before I started editing and editing._

_Anyway, please review! I think it's the first time I wrote angstyNaruHina if not the first time I wrote NaruHina. I need feedback. "It was nice," or "It sucked," would do! :)_

_so much love from renzie17 x_


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